This sweet and sour crème based on lemon, butter, sugar and egg yolk is a real guilty pleasure! And even better when you add a bit of limoncello. This typical English ‘find’ is delicious to spread onto a madeleine, financier, a slice of toasted brioche, on a pancake, a rusk, or traditional; on a warm English scone. But you can also use this limoncello lemon curd in a lemon meringue pie or in several sponge and cupcakes. Or simply add a spoon to your yoghurt or ice cream. You can keep the lemon curd refrigerated for about 2 weeks, but if you use sterilised preserving jars you can keep it for about a month. But not sure it will still be there by then… In our fridge a jar of lemon curs won’t last so long!
Ingredients (for about 400 gram lemon curd)
2 organic lemons
140 gram butter, room temperature
200 gram caster sugar
70 ml limoncello (skip the limoncello if you don’t want the alcohol, adding the juice of 1 more lemon instead)
2 eggs
2 (extra) egg yolks
pinch of salt
other: sterilised jam jar or preserving jar containing
Directions
Wash and dry the lemons. For the best taste, use organic, good quality lemons. Finely grind the zest of the lemons and make sure the pieces are very small. Grind it in a kitchen blender if necessary. Squeeze one of the two lemons and make sure there are no seeds in the juice. Strain if necessary and mix together with the limoncello. Keep aside for later. (If you don’t like to use limoncello in your curd, skip this, and add the juice of the other lemon instead)
Bring a pan with water to simmer over low heat and take a (fireproof) bowl, which will fit into the pan (au bain-marie). Make sure the bowl don’t touch the water but is quite close to it.
Melt the butter au bain-marie, together with the sugar, pinch of salt and lemon zest. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl (off heat), whisk together the eggs and egg yolks. Once the butter mixture is well melted and mixed, lower the heat and add the eggs and extra yolks.
Stir in the zest and lemon juice ad limoncello as well. Reduce the heat and add the thick and fluffy egg mixture to the butter au bain-marie. Let the mixture thicken and slowly warm up now for about 10-20 minutes, without boiling, and keep on stirring or whisking every now and then. Until it form a paste and gets the consistency of custard. Make sure the bowl gets warm but not too hot, otherwise you’ll end up with scrambled eggs.
If you are happy with the result, take the bowl carefully off the heat and poor the lemon curd into the sterilised jar(s). Allow to cool completely. Then put it in the fridge for at least 3 hours. Your lemon curd is ready now, and you can enjoy it on a rusk, scone or pancake. In your yoghurt, on an ice-cream or in several cakes, desserts and tarts!
